The Table

This Mother’s Day will be 27 Mother’s Days without my mum. It’s a widely celebrated day of love and happiness but the occasion stirs up mixed emotions for Motherless daughters. Over the years, my mother’s death has hit me hard in varying ways and I think about her everyday. Things frequently pop up that remind me of her and the strong emotional bond we shared. 

The following is a true tale about an incident that recently happened to me involving my mother. Surprising to involve her because she’s been dead since 1996. Time has marched on, we’re a new millennium (!), and the nuclear family that was has gone its separate ways. My father, brother and I live in different cities and for me, countries. Mum was the glue that kept our family together; without her, we are now seldom in touch. This is the indelible truth that can happen to a family when its pivotal figure dies. And on days like Mother’s Day - when I think of the last Mother’s Day I had with her, which was also spent with my father and brother, I can’t help but feel a pang of sadness and nostalgia for the times that have passed along with her.

Sometimes though, I still feel her presence because it was not that long ago that Mum and I ‘reconnected’. One could speculate that she was sending me a sign from the beyond to remind me of an item that had belonged to her, bringing it to my attention because she wanted me to have it, and she wanted to remind my Dad that I should have it.

Discovering the letter

Usually when I return to Melbourne (Australia) from Los Angeles, I’ll make a stop at the Taxibox storage facility to inspect the belongings I’ve been storing there for the past 10 years. Last September, while combing through the storage unit, I dug into an old copper pot that contained letters my mum had sent me when I was a teenager at boarding school. I didn’t have time to re-read them then, so I put them in my handbag for safekeeping to take back to America with me.

A few weeks later, when I was home in Los Angeles, I retrieved one of the letters. Mum had written it in 1988 when I was only 13. In the letter, Mum told me she had bought a dining table with her own money. This was significant because my mother had never worked full time, so saving money required a lot of time and effort. Mum described the table’s uniqueness. She explained that a local steak restaurant in Alice Springs was closing down and had several tables to sell. These tables had been made out of the jarrah wood from the sleepers of The Ghan, a train that runs an epic 2,797 kilometres (1,846 miles) from Adelaide to Darwin in Australia. She had loved the table’s connection to Alice Springs, a small town in Central Australia where my parents had been temporarily based for my father’s work. Mum said she’d paid $3,000 for it but suspected it could be worth as much as $20,000, since the restaurant might have underpriced its value to make a quick sale. The fact she’d included this detail made me smile. Mum was thrifty and I could feel her delight spring from the page in the happy belief that she’d scored herself a deal.

I instantly knew the table Mum described. When my parents moved from Alice Springs to Melbourne in 1990, I left boarding school in Adelaide to join them and start Year 11 as a ‘day girl’. We bought an old Edwardian family home and the table took pride of place in our dining room. It was the room’s centrepiece. 

More than just a table - it was a haven

Mum was a talented cook and my parents would often entertain. Mum would make her signature dinner party dishes: salmon roulade for main course and store-bought brandy snaps filled with brandy whipped cream for dessert. She would prepare the meals in the kitchen and ferry them down the hallway to excitable oohs and aahs from the guests as she placed food on the table. There were many gatherings around the table in the six years we had Mum with us in that home. I celebrated my 18th birthday around the table – school friends sang happy birthday as I blew out 18 candles on the cake Mum had made. There were also quieter, relaxed times that I remember well; Mum and I chatting at the table, with her German Shepherd dog sitting nearby soaking up the warmth from the fireplace, flames and firewood cracking and popping. Occasionally I did my homework there, including a year 12 art project about the musical, The Phantom of the Opera, which I received full marks. When Mum passed away, the table became a makeshift florist display, as we placed the sympathy flowers people had sent on it. 

So while this table has strong connections to my mum and our family, I wonder if it will remain that way? 

You see, my mother left “all remaining possessions” in her will to my dad. As he has since remarried, the table, being “joint-property”, will belong to my dad’s second wife when he passes. Dad says the table will eventually come back to us (my brother, me or my brother’s children) when his wife dies, but Dad’s wife is closer in age to me, than she is to him. I see time bringing its distance, and quite frankly given recent developments, the table will go to anyone other than me. 

After re-reading the letter Mum wrote to 13-year-old me, I asked my father if I could have the table left to me in his will. Dad’s response was he and his wife had already discussed and made his will and the table would be going to her. As far as they are both concerned the case is closed and the decision is just; his wife will get the table and I should be accepting of it. 

I don’t begrudge my dad for having a relationship after my mother, but I do begrudge him for his attitude to this latest turn of events. In my opinion, the table belonged to my mother. It is a family heirloom, and should not be conveniently listed among the “joint-property” that my father and his wife have bought together during their marriage. I believe my mum would have wanted me to have the table once my father passed and it is reasonable for me to be asking for it. Could that be why my mother’s letter showed up after 35 years? Could it be that in the ethereal world she knew what was in place and was nudging me towards a different outcome?

As a result of this incident, my father and I haven’t had any meaningful contact in more than six months. Very sad considering months are like dog years when one is 80. Obviously there are strong emotions on both sides of this issue and I’ve had to face the reality that in this scenario, Dad will have his way. Everyone grieves differently and I accept that my response to Mum’s decades-long absence will be different from others in my family. Unfortunately, our divergent approaches to grieving and ways in which we honour my mother, has frequently put us at odds and led to periods of estrangement, and that brings a whole other layer of grief to deal with. 

In closing, let me return to the supernatural. Over the years my mother has appeared in my dreams. A few years ago, I dreamt the two of us were talking. I was conveying my frustration over an episode of my father’s treatment of me. In my dream, I shared with Mum that Dad had changed dramatically after meeting his wife and this greatly impacted the way he was with me. Only months before Dad met his new partner he had spent a fortune renovating our family home after he and I made a pact to take on the project. Let’s bring the house to its full glory, just as Mum would have wanted was his position. We were doing it as a tribute to her, both united in the project’s undertaking and committed to living in the beautifully renovated house together for years to come. But with his new relationship redirecting his priorities, I was out of the family home within six months and Dad sold the house shortly after.

In dreamform Mum showed little reaction to my comments. (On the contrary, alive Mum would have had an opinion!) Instead, in my dream Mum was apathetic of the situation. She may have even shrugged her shoulders in resignation. This passive response infuriated me, but underneath it my subconscious was sensing a message. There is nothing we can do. We can’t control the situation. Acceptance. There was her answer. Mum had made peace with how my Dad was moving on and urged me to find peace with it too. 

Postscript – Mum said (while she was alive) that if she could come back after death and visit us she would. There have been a few times where I’ve particularly felt her show up and the latest letter incident felt like more than just a rediscovery of the letter. This is the type of thing (in my opinion) she (like me) would get riled up about. She took pride in her belongings and put her family first. Sure, she didn’t leave the table to me in her will, but after my father, she would have wanted me or my brother to have it. She was a feisty person and if nothing else - in exhausting my efforts to have it belong to me - I’ve honoured Mum’s spirit. 

A stormy King Lear read true off the page

 

Wanting came with understanding, he said, but I knew straight away I would want him. I knew it the moment he walked into that San Francisco wine bar. He was tall and lithe, a little disheveled in appearance with tousled brown hair, the makings of a beard, and cheekbones that could carve butter.

“Hi!” I called. 

The handsome stranger was a little startled by my attention. He had buried his face in his phone, but looked up to respond. “Hello,” he said.

“What do you do?” I asked, sizing up his worn tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows.

“I’m an academic,” he said.

He looked far too young to describe himself as an “academic,” but I was intrigued. “Really? What discipline?” I asked.  

“Literature and Philosophy,” he answered.

I was excited. “You know, for a long time I have wanted to read Shakespeare with someone who knows their stuff,” I said with a brazen smile.

The academic grinned and dug into his backpack to retrieve a copy of Romeo and Juliet. He laid it on the counter so I could see it clearly. It was a teasing gesture, but I have to admit I found it romantic. He was issuing an intellectual challenge that I was eager to take up. He fetched a pen and piece of paper and wrote down his name and number. Then, as quickly as he had arrived, he was out the door. “Off to meet friends,” he said.

I smiled as I surveyed his neat handwriting, sipping my wine. After a few minutes, I reached for my phone to send him a text: Shakespeare, I just met you at the bar. Should we start reading Hamlet or King Lear?

And so it began with King Lear.

We became Facebook friends soon after. I saw from his profile page that he had studied at Harvard and Stanford. He was no small fry academic.

Our first 'read' together – where we both sat with the text and took turns reading passages aloud – was magic. I also learned the academic was 37, straight, and single. I was only two years older than him and ready to fall in love. Immediately, I felt like meeting him had opened up a whole world of unexpected possibility. Nonetheless, I was still clearing away the residue from my last romantic rejection. I was in no mood for a short-term fling at this point, and the next guy I went for would have to be all in. I was tired of non-committal men.

I was delighted when the academic took the initiative to arrange all of our reads. He was also in daily contact on text or Facebook messenger. His command of the English language was an aphrodisiac and I would share snippets of his musings with my friends back in Australia. All of us kept having to reach for the dictionary to look up the meaning of his words.

During our first meeting, he peppered the conversation with quotes from Hamlet. I was precisely the right audience for that kind of move. I  would openly swoon and he’d coyly say, “Why don’t American girls fall for that?” I said a man who quoted Shakespeare would always have my heart, that American women must be crazy. He fixed me with an intense gaze then broke into a wide smile. As we read together - we played rock, paper and scissors to decide who would go first - our legs brushed under the table. His hand would touch mine as he leaned across to point out a word or verse on my page.

During our second reading, after a couple of dry martinis in a downtown hotel lobby bar, he asked if I wanted him to kiss me. Of course I wanted to be kissed, but I was also hesitant. Was this man up for what I needed romantically? Our reading and the experience had been so enjoyable, but I didn’t want to escalate our relationship unless he was ready for something serious. 

Nonetheless, our tipsy giddiness took over. He kissed me vigorously a couple of doors down from the hotel on the street. I was startled by his sexual energy but it also enthralled me. This was no thin-blooded bookworm – my academic had Romeo raging inside him. 

We continued our readings, and our kisses. He paid meticulous attention to Shakespeare’s meter, word pronunciation and took pause often to recap scenes and examine their meaning. “The Quarto says this, but the Folio version has taken this direction,” he’d explain. It was nerdy, but I was captivated by his focus and attention to detail. His sharp intelligence intimidated me but it also made me feel alive.

He continued to initiate our readings and kiss me passionately after each one until it reached a point where I decided I needed to clarify things. I’d had my fair share of boyish men with devilish good looks play with me because all they had wanted was a casual fling. “Does it bother you that I’m two years older?” I asked. We were having dinner before going to a King Lear film screening in Berkeley. 

“I don’t know,” he replied. “I haven’t decided yet. If you looked your age, maybe it would, because I look much younger than what I am. It’s a visceral thing,” he said. “It can’t be explained.”

He talked about younger women and how he had never had a problem attracting them. This was my first gut feel that this guy is nowhere near where you need him to be, I thought. As the night wore on, my composure started to crumble. I grew pale. The academic sensed my alarm and sweetly asked whether everything was ok. It was not, I replied, but was not yet ready to tell him why. The younger women conversation had thrown me, triggering my insecurities about being a single, childless woman in my late 30s.

He held my hand and stroked my leg throughout the epic three hour film and continued to hold my hand as he walked me to my car. Seeming to sense my growing unease, he turned to look at me, concern in his eyes. Predictably, my heart melted. Once again we found ourselves kissing desperately in the middle of the sidewalk.

I grew a little more distant after that evening and deliberately brushed off his suggestion of another reading that weekend. He said my response was cold and dismissive and was confused by it. We spoke on the phone that night to clarify. It was during this call that I realized my intuition about him not being ready for me was right. The academic, it turned out, was still grappling with lost love. 

He’d been in a relationship that had ended badly ‘not so long ago.’ He described it as perfect (something, even with our connection, I knew we weren’t), but for whatever reason, what he'd had with her was over.  I listened as he suggested perhaps given this, it would be wiser to revert to reading alone without all the physical stuff.

The academic said he’d use impulse control next time we read. Inevitably, our ‘powerful physical attraction’ as he called it, got the better of us. As much as I wanted more from him, I came to realize it was foolish of me to think intimacy would shift his readiness or desire for a relationship.

We thrashed out our relationship over Facebook messenger. I told him what I firmly knew – I wanted a boyfriend. He was at pains for me to clarify, “Ok, can you define that? Is it more than what we are doing together at present, in terms of reading?” His words didn’t inspire much confidence and further clarified that I was fighting an uphill battle with him. 

We stayed together for three days at a San Francisco apartment I rented not long after. There were the usual teething problems that accompany two people staying together at length for the first time, but for the most part, it was comfortable and nice. By night three however I was tired and emotional. The four wines I’d drunk over the course of the evening didn’t help. I told him I wanted us to be closer. Why couldn’t he give me that?  He said I was being pushy, and that our “understanding” was eroding. He told me I was being disrespectful of where he was at. He had tried to be open and honest with me about “still carrying feelings” from his last relationship. The academic wanted to keep seeing me but said my feelings were unrealistic. He and I were in very different places. “I think reading Shakespeare might have tricked us into feeling we knew each other better than we did,” he offered. 

“That I want more from you?” I asked. “Yes, more than I can give, at this point,” he said. I suggested perhaps I should date other men, even though I didn’t really want to. My theory was that dating around would relieve some pressure from him, and maybe help me find someone who was more ready for something long-term. Secretly, though, I hoped the academic would say no and that he would commit to a relationship with me in time. My heart sunk when he agreed that dating other men sounded like a good idea. He was pulling back.    

We stumbled on for a brief time after that, hovering somewhere between dating and friendship, but the seed of insecurity had been planted and our union was about to implode. He told me he was planning to leave San Francisco in a few months and go back to New York where he had lived eight years before.  Maybe London or Paris after that. Apparently, he felt the people in those cities would understand him better.  It became obvious that he had no intention of ‘developing’ further with me. My whole body retched physically with rejection.

I had to let go. My heart had no other option but to grieve and move on. In a final text to him, I chose a language we could both understand. I quoted from King Lear, the play we never finished reading because our romantic tussles had intruded. I was finishing the play on my own one evening and the words from the end verse felt like Shakespeare himself was reading them to me as I typed them into my phone:

 

The weight of this sad time, we must obey

 

Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.

 

I knew he would recognize it.  Shakespeare had given me permission, I said.